About the cover photo: It took me three attempts of between 4 and 5 days each to get into the spot where this photo was taken. On the first two trips I suffered some very painful injuries. This spot is in the Baker River drainage in North Cascades National Park. Do you know the name of the mountain?

Converse hightops on my feet, I traverse the North Cascades in pursuit of my life project to walk into every high lake or pond mapped in the Skagit River watershed. The upper Skagit Valley near Marblemount, WA is my home and has been home to my family since 1888. I have come to feel that the culture of this place, like the culture of much of rural America, is misunderstood by an increasingly urban population and threatened by economic depression. I would like to share the stories of this place and the people who call it home. Through my stories and images of these mountains, my goal is to help others understand and respect both the natural resources and the people of the North Cascades.


Monday, December 28, 2015

What I Did Last Summer (2015) II


Sacha called this post "A wall of words". I freely admit it is long and drawn out but not unlike entries I make in my field journals.

 8/6 thru 8/15 Downey/Pilot Lakes:

I had been into Downey Lake and all of the other mapped lakes and ponds in the vicinity in 1996 except Pilot Lake. Was unable to find a way down to Pilot Lake then with the time I had allotted for the trip. I remember getting up a little way on the ridge between Downey and Pilot Lakes and looking down at where I though Pilot Lake must be and thinking that it didn’t look like there was even a lake there. I left it at that but over the years it nagged me that I hadn’t gotten into Pilot Lake and maybe it wasn’t visible from where I had been looking in 1996. And I hadn’t been looking for amphibians in 1996. So decided to put it back on the list to do in 2015. With the Suiattle River Road open again, it was a little more doable without the 18 mile round trip created by the road closure. Turned down 14 hours of overtime at $57.74/hour, total $808 and change in order to do the trip. Started Thursday after rain let up. Got soaked from brush but this also helped keep me cool, although some of my clothes and pack began to reek of wet, stale sweat. It was the kind of conditions where you actually get wetter by wearing raingear because it makes you sweat more. Either way, you are going to get wet. Got into pond at about 4740 feet elevation below Downey Mountain about 11:00. Made pretty good time. Spent next couple of hours going around pond surveying. Saw about 20 Cascades frogs. Caught 3 and sampled for chytrid fungus. On the first one I realized that I had brought the used bag of latex gloves I was supposed to use for sampling. You only use each pair once to prevent cross contamination of the fungus so these gloves were completely useless. Even worse, if I did use them, there was a chance that I might actually spread the fungus if the used gloves were contaminated. Luckily I had brought a few new gloves for backups and they were enough to get the job done. Continued on into meadows north of Downey Mountain proper towards an unnamed Lake at 5808 feet elevation and ultimately Downey Lake. This took me past a spot where, in 1996, as I was heading out, I encountered a bear. Just before I saw this particular bear, I heard something crash off through the brush at the edge of the meadows and woods. The bear I saw was pretty close, maybe 30 feet away, below me on the hill. At first it stayed on all fours and I couldn’t see its head but I heard it huffing loudly. Then it reared up on its hind legs and I could see that it was slobbering. The whole time I stood there frozen but when the bear reared up, I stood on my tiptoes, pack and all and tried to make myself as big as possible. Finally the bear dropped to all fours and crashed off through the brush as well. Later, in talking to a friend who is a bear biologist, I was informed that the bear had been threatening me, or at least telling me to give it some space. I had probably come across a sow with a cub. The lake at 5808 feet had a lot less snow than when I visited in 1996. I observed a Cascades frog there. As I stated earlier, I hadn’t been looking for amphibians in 1996 so the observations here and at the 4740 pond were all new. Also the edge of a fire that occurred in 2005 ended not too far from this lake. The aquatics crew I worked on in 2005 was supposed to survey Downey Creek in 2005 but were shut down by this fire. We ended up surveying it in 2006. I had debated taking a route into Downey Lake that would take me around this lake but I wanted to have another look at it so I followed the route I took in 1996. From the 5808 Lake I had to go over a steep ridge into Downey Lake where I arrived at about 6:00 p.m. Time to set up camp, eat dinner and poke around a little before dark. The next day, the 7th was my 50th birthday. There were two possible routes over the knife edged ridge into Pilot Lake, a low route that dropped several hundred feet to get over the ridge then several hundred feet back up into Pilot Lake and a high route that required climbing 1400 feet up from Downey Lake, crossing over the ridge between Downey Lake in the Downey Creek drainage and Sulphur Creek, getting through a notch in the ridge and then descending 1200 feet into Pilot Lake. I had looked at the low route in 1996 and rejected it but at that time I was also very tired and short on time. I decided to try it again. I was harboring fantasies that, if it worked, I could be in and out of Pilot Lake and maybe even make it all the way back out that day. I managed to get past the spot that I was most worried about to a spot where the map indicated it the ground should be less steep. Initially I hit some flatter ground and thought I had it made. Then I ran into a bunch of cliffs so I tried to sidehill in the direction of Pilot Lake through some brushy steep ground. More cliffs. Maybe there was a way through using this route but it didn’t look promising and I could spend a lot of time trying to find it. I decided to abandon this attempt. It looked like the map had hidden a bunch of cliffs, which is easy to do in timbered ground as this was, and all of the brush made in difficult to see to navigate and to move easily. This was before 9:00 a.m., plenty of time to try the high route. So I climbed back up 600 or 800 feet back to Downey Lake then 1000 feet to the top of the ridge between Downey Lake and Sulphur Creek. I would travel along the Sulphur Creek side of this ridge until I could get through a notch back on to the Downey Creek side and Pilot Lake. I saw the notch where I needed to go and it looked like a miserable trip to it, steep, slick meadows all the way. I started out with quite a bit of trepidation but I managed to keep going, slow as it was. I often ended up following whistle pig (hoary marmot) trails. There were a lot of marmots on that mountainside. I kept going and going but the notch didn’t seem to get any closer. Things didn’t seem right. The ground was steeper and the notch seemed farther than indicated on the map. However, I have misread maps before and sometimes they are wrong so I figured that one of these was the case. Finally, around noon, I reached a spot that was just too steep to attempt. I could see what I thought was my notch less than half a mile away and tantalizingly close. But it was just too much. After a mental battle that lasting 15 minutes to get myself to admit defeat, I started back. There is always a lot of disappointment at these times but also a feeling of relief. I would have to figure out another way and make the attempt at some other time or just abandon the attempt altogether and chalk it up to an overall defeat. I had decided to take a lower route on the way back because the ground looked a lot less steep but, despite that, I found myself taking a higher route. When I got within about a quarter mile of the spot where I topped the ridge from Downey Lake, I realized that I wasn’t too far from the top of the ridge I was on. So I decided to go to the top and look over. Maybe I could see Pilot Lake and get some ideas how to get into it, or maybe I would discover that it didn’t exist at all. When I got to the top of the ridge I realized that I could walk up it quite easily, much easier than sidehilling through the meadows. As I started up the ridge, it dawned on me that I shouldn’t be too far from the notch that I wanted to get to. It took about 10 minutes on the ridge to cover the distance it took a half hour or more to cover sidehilling through the meadow just below. Sure enough, I came to the notch in a short time. I had lost sight of it behind the many rock outcrops and bulges in the meadows below and had gone past it, sidehilling for about an hour too far. It was now after 1:00 p.m. I figured I could get down through the notch safely and that I would have time to get into Pilot Lake. Got down through the notch okay. Saw a nice black bear about halfway down. Bear was eating blueberries which were abundant and ripe in the area-about a month early. I was several hundred yards awar and the bear didn’t see me so I got a bunch of pictures of it before it finally noticed me. When it did notice me it started towards me in a manner like it was curious, trying to figure out what I was. I was upwind and bears have poor eyesight. Finally, when it did figure out what I was, it took off in the other direction at a pretty good pace. This was good as far as I was concerned because I had to go through the spot where it was feeding. It was in pretty good shape, lots of fat, I could see it rolling as it moved though not the pre-hibernation super-fat. The berries will be done early this year so it might be a little sketchy for food sources for bears though they are omnivores and might be able to tap other food sources. Continued on to the lake to discover that, in fact, it does not exist. I had been right in 1996 and could have saved myself all the trouble I had gone through to get there. The flat where the “lake” is supposed to sit is visible from several points along the routes I had taken, including from the spot where I came over the ridge from the 5808 lake. There were two large, defininte berms formed by a moraine or avalanche debris separated by a wide low spot on the northwest side of the “lake” site. There was a definite flat area that occurs when sediment settles out of slow water as in a lake. This looked more like the result of sediment settling out of temporarily flowing water. There was a small stream from a melting snowfield flowing through part of the flat. There was a small, dry outlet channel through the gap between the berms. And the whole area was littered with avalanche debris. Part of the flat area was covered with a healthy growth of sedges that typically grow in temporarily (ephemerally) wet to drier areas. This seemed to indicate that this area being dry was a normal condition that occurred every year rather than the result of this summer’s very dry weather. Possibly there was a lake here at one time that filled in. I think it is more likely that, in most years, there are large snowfields covering the flat for most, if not all of the summer and the people who mapped this area could see the berms and the large snowfields over the flat and assumed or guessed that there was a lake there.

It was all rather disappointing but, then again, I was now pretty sure that this was the actual site and there was no lake there. No more doubts. I headed back over the ridge, stopping at the top to get some photos of the surrounding area. I could see a fire blowing up several ridge lines away. I think this was a fire over near Stehekin, in the Park Creek Pass area. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful and I got home the next day, Saturday at about 1:00 p.m.

Cascades frog (Rana cascadae) at unnamed pond/small lake below Downey Mountain at 4740 feet elevation. 

Long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) at unnamed pond/small lake below Downey Mountain at 4740 feet elevation. 

Unnamed pond/small lake below Downey Mountain at 4740 foot elevation. 

Downey Mountain

Whistle pig or hoary marmot (Marmota caligata) in meadows north of Downey Mountain proper. I saw a lot of marmots on this trip. 

Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) in 2005 burn on Downey Mountain.  I used this photo for a birthday card for Sacha. 

Unnamed lake (or at least name not know to me) at 5808 foot elevation west of Downey Lake. 

Looking north at Mount Buckindy from 5808 lake. When I was in here in 1996, Mount Buckindy was obscured by clouds and I had fantasies of the perfect photo of Mount Buckindy from the south end of this lake. Buckindy was still a little obscured on this trip but it became apparent to me that my fantasies of the perfect photo were just that. The scene pictured here isn't anything close to the visions I had conjured in my head. 

Looking west at 5808 lake. 

Looking east at the "Pilot Lake" and Downey Lake basins. The "Pilot Lake" basin is the lower rocky area with two small snow patches just on the left side of the heavily timbered area near center frame. Downey Lake is in the depression at the right side of the frame. 


evening sun leaving Downey Lake. 


Mount Buckindy from west outlet of Downey Lake. There are two outlets to Downey Lake. The one to the west, where I camped and where this photo was taken was dry. The one to the east was watered. 

Mount Buckindy, morning from the west outlet of Downey Lake. 

Looking northwest at Mount Buckindy (center frame) and Mount Chaval (left center frame) and Downey Lake (left frame, foreground) from ridge between Downey Lake (Creek) and Sulphur Creek. 

Dome Peak from Sulphur Creek side of ridge between Downey Lake (Creek) and Sulphur Creek. 

Mount Buckindy and Mount Chaval (left) from ridge between Downey Lake (Creek) and Sulphur Creek. 

Black bear on route into "Pilot Lake". This was the only bear I saw in the high country this year. The blueberry crop was really wierd, probably due to warmer conditions with no snow much earlier. This was in early August, when, in what I would consider normal years, the berries would be green and just forming. This year, at this time, the berry crop was full ripe. In September of this year, usually the peak berry season, most of the berries were gone and the few that remained were pretty dry and insipid.  

Pilot "Lake", looking west.

Mount Buckindy, looking north from the outlet of Pilot "Lake."

Pilot "Lake."

Pilot "Lake", looking east.

Pilot "Lake", looking south.


Mount Chaval from ridge between Downey Lake (Creek) and Sulphur Creek. 

Looking southwest down ridge between Downey Lake (Creek) and Sulphur Creek. 

Looking northeast at ridge between Downey Lake (Creek) and Sulphur Creek from the Sulphur Creek side. The notch where I needed to go is at about center frame. 

Looking east up Sulphur Creek drainage. The large cumulus clouds are a fire blowing up in the Stehekin area. A cloud behind me cast a shadow that looked distinctly like a flying saucer (I looked behind me. It was just a cloud). The flying saucer shadow is the main reason I took this photo. 

Mount Chaval backlit in the evening from the Downey Creek side of the ridge. 

Fish from Downey Lake. These are westslope cutthroat (Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi). 

Looking southwest at 5808 Lake on morning of return trip. 

Looking southwest at Downey Mountain proper on return trip. The Suiattle River is visible behind Downey Mountain. 



8/15,16,17/15 Sulphur Mountain Lake and vicinity:

Plan was to go into Sulphur Mountain Lake, hopefully getting in on Saturday with enough time to look Sulphur Mountain Lake over. Next day go into unmapped lake two drainages west of Sulphur Mountain Lake and then into some lakes to southeast and scout route into Bath Lakes. Had Friday off but weather came in. Forecast indicated it would probably lift during the day Saturday. So switched day off from Friday to Monday. Figured it might be a little wet to start on Saturday but then it would clear off. Turned down 22 hours of overtime at $57.64/hour, total $1268. Wanted to get early start Saturday and did but ran into two guys about 2 miles up Suiattle River Road who said a large clump of trees, an alder and some maples, had come down at 3 mile, blocking the road. Said with high note of skepticism that two young guys were going to try to get them out of the way. One of these guys I was talking to had a beat up old truck and he looked like he had been around a while so I figured he probably knew what he was talking about. Considered going an having a look for myself but decided to save time and just head to Marblemount for saw. Knew some people in Darrington but didn’t want to go banging on doors early in the morning asking to borrow saw. Went to Marblemount, got saw and headed back. Guys were gone when I got there. With a bad feeling kept going. Turned out the “big” clump of trees were all about 4 inches in diameter. Had machete that I always carry behind seat that could have easily chopped through them in minutes and somebody, probably the young guys had broken enough off them to get by. Kept going up the road, an hour and a half behind schedule, cursing myself for not checking the “big” clump out for myself. It worked out in the end anyway. Overcast and cool when I started up the trail with occasional spots of weak sunlight. Trail is steep so I liked the coolness. However, rain the previous night had thoroughly wetted all the brush. Remembered the trail being fairly open but there was also a lot of low brush in places. Brush wetted pants quite quickly but not quite enough to warrant putting on rain gear. Hard call to make in conditions like this, one can get just as wet or wetter by wearing raingear as you would without raingear just from sweating inside raingear. Either way you are going to get wet and run the risk of chills. I chose to leave raingear off. Legs got very tired but couldn’t stop and rest too long or they felt like they would cramp from cooling down too much. After several hours, legs really needed a rest and it was about lunchtime. Needed to stop and rest but was reluctant because it was so cold I knew legs would be really stiff and difficult to move until they warmed back up, which would take a while. Finally stopped on switchback and had lunch. Was pretty chilled by the time I was finished with lunch. Wanted to rest legs a bit more but had to get moving. Very miserable putting pack with cold and wet from sweat back on and starting back up trail on very stiff legs that I was worried might cramp. For the third or fourth time that day, something in the back of my mind wanted to quit but I forced myself on. About mile from top, a heavy mist started falling. Tree branches and brush completely soaked. Picked a lot of it up off trail.  Reached top and end of official trail at about 1:00 p.m. Could see less than 100 yards in any direction. Was cursing myself. I had violated my cardinal rule not to go out if I wasn’t going to see anything. Still, weather forecast had called for these conditions to lift so I continued on through mist and soaking brush. I wondered if there was a more direct route to Sulphur Mountain Lake but I had wanted to go to Lookout Lake which was higher in the basin so I just took the long route and didn’t look very hard for a trail to Sulphur Mountain Lake. Way trail took me to saddle where I needed to cut down to Lookout Lake. Couldn’t see anything which was frustrating because I had been able to easily see this area when I had gone to the end of the offical trail a little over a month before. Started working my way down a steep slope through mist and soaking brush. Nearly missed Lookout Lake in the fog. Walked through flat where Lookout Lake sat. Lake was dry or nearly so with a stream meandering through flat. Didn’t stay long. Wanted to keep moving to stay warm. Made my way down valley to large flat were some small, nearly dry ponds sat just above Sulphur Mountain Lake. Decided to camp there. Temperature was pretty cold, in range where, if I had lingered too long, a half hour or hour without moving much I would be in danger of hypothermia as wet as I was. I needed to either build a fire or get into shelter and dry clothes. Even though everything had been super dry to this point in the summer, as wet as it was with a constant mist I wasn’t too worried about a fire taking off as long as it was handled properly. However, I figured it would be quicker and easier to set up my tent, which I did. I got everything under cover and got inside. Got out of my wet clothes and into my Minus 33 merino wool long underwear and then into my sleeping bag. The feeling was exquisite. Nothing like getting out of wet, cold clothes and into something soft and warm. Nearly 3:00 p.m. when I crawled into my sleeping bag. I figured I would rest a bit and hopefully the clouds would lift. The next thing I knew it was after 7:00 p.m. I had dozed off for over four hours. It was still misty and foggy outside. I put on my raingear over my long underwear and put on my waterproof socks and went outside to cook dinner. The raingear and socks were sufficient to keep me quite comfortable by keeping me dry and breaking whatever slight breeze there was. After dinner I turned in for the night and slept soundly until morning. I woke up at about 5:45 a.m. and noticed that it had quit misting. This was the day (Sunday) that it was supposed to clear off for sure. I looked outside and it was still socked in. I had to get up to answer a call of nature, again wearing my raingear and waterproof socks. I wandered around the flat a bit and then crawled back into my tent. I had had a lot of plans for this trip and it looked like they were pretty much shot. I figured I would hang out in my tent until it cleared up. If it didn’t clear up by noon, I planned to check Sulphur Mountain Lake out in the fog and bag the whole trip. As I said, the whole feeling of the soft and warm long underwear and sleeping bag was exquisite, so where better to hang out and wait on the weather? The next thing I knew it was 10:00 a.m. and a little sun was beginning to shine through the mist onto my tent. As I was quite well rested at this point, it was pretty easy for me to roust out, though the first thing I did was put on my wet clothes from the day before. This was a shock and quite unpleasant. I would be moving around from now on so these clothes would dry out as I wore them, partly from body heat and partly from the sun. A quick breakfast where I burned my mouth with hot oatmeal and then down to check out Sulphur Mountain Lake. Plan at this point was to check out Sulphur Mountain Lake and bag it, aiming to get out that day and hopefully save a day of vacation from work. Got done walking around Sulphur Mountain Lake at about 2:00 p.m. and had thought that I might have time to get into unmapped lake two drainages to the east. I had wanted to check this lake out as part of the original plan. Wasted a little time debating whether I had enough time to do it or not and then decided to go. Felt pretty lethargic at the start, either from the trail the day before or from sleeping too much in the previous day and most of that morning. Legs and lungs seemed fine so lethargy probably the result of sleeping too much. There was small saddle that I had been looking at on map but couldn’t see on the previous day because of the fog. Found it and, sure enough, was able to get through and over a minor ridge into the next drainage over. This drainage was in the middle between Sulphur Mtn Lake drainage and the drainage where the lake I wanted to go into sat. Plan was to follow this middle drainage down about 1000 feet and cross the nose of another ridge into the destination drainage. Got down into flats near head of middle drainage and assumed I could take any of the minor draws down into the main drainage but ran into cliffs on first two I tried. Backtracked both times and got into draw the farthest east and could see into the main drainage. At this point it was nearly 4:00 p.m. and I was seriously doubting that I had the time to get into the unmapped lake. Would have to go down about one thousand feet through what looked like mostly talus and then across the nose of the ridge over some pretty steep, probably brushy ground. Talus is generally good walking but it takes more time to work through than heather, grass and sedge. Likewise the steep ground and any brush on the nose of the ridge would slow my progress. If I had had a few more hours it would have been fairly easy but I had lost a lot of time due to the weather that morning and wasted time due to indecision. I spent more time in indecision before finally deciding to set a turn around time so I could get back to camp by dark. It was a little after 4:00 p.m. and I wanted to be back to camp by about 8:00 p.m. I would need 45 minutes to an hour to get back to camp from my present location. A thousand feet down and back would be about an hour each way. That left me about an hour to get across the nose of the ridge, find the lake and look it over.  I set my turn around time at 5:30 p.m. I started down. After initially tough spot on the way down, got lucky and ran into some good ground for travel. Talus mid-way down valley slowed me up but not too bad. Nose of ridge was pretty steep but not nearly as brushy as it could have been. Got around ridge and could hear creek associated with lake but couldn’t tell if I was above or below lake. Reasoned that since I could hear flowing water and didn’t see large open spot at my position or below, lake was probably above me. Started towards sound of creek with a gradual uphill angle. Found lake a short time later, time was 5:15 p.m. Hurriedly took notes on plants and observations. Saw lots of salamanders, tadpoles and Cascades frogs. Managed to capture two Cascades frogs and get chytrid fungus samples from them. Started back out at about 6:15 p.m. The songs "Lay It on the Line"and "Follow Your Heart" by the Canadian band Triumph were going through my head all the way back out of the hole into the unnamed lake. Got back to camp at about 8:15 p.m. Next day got up and went down to Sulphur Mtn Lake and caught some fish to take home, broke camp and headed out. . I had noticed from trip previous day that it would be fairly easy to get into Sulphur Mountain Lake from lower on the Sulphur Mountain trail and this would be an easier route than via Lookout Lake but I wanted to look at some potential routes from Lookout Lake area so wanted to take that longer route. Found a promising route into some nearby lakes and potentially for a later trip into Bath Lakes. Looked more closely on main trail out and, sure enough, there was a well worn trail into Sulphur Mountain Lake just where the main trail broke over the final ridge at the edge of timberline. Got home early enough to set tent and gear out to dry and to run some resupply errands down below. Got all of that stuff, more fishing tackle and more stove fuel. Got home about 15 minutes after Sacha and the kids and found pretty much everybody in a foul mood. Phoebe had a cold which I either already had or that I caught from her.

The sun finally breaking through the fog on Sunday morning a little after 10:00 a.m. 

Sunday morning. 

Sulphur Mountain Lake looking northwest at Downey Mountain from flat just above. This flat is where I camped the night before. The last of the fog/cloud is lifting. 

Sulphur Mountain Lake looking northwest. 

Sulphur Mountain Lake, looking northwest. 

Sulphur Mountain Lake, looking southeast. 

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Sulphur Mountain Lake. 

I believe this butterfly is commonly called a satyr (Satyrus spp.). The references I have indicate that it is probably called either satyr angelwings or satyr comma. I am not very proficient on butterflies so I will leave it up to the lepidopterists to make a positive I.D.

Sulphur Mountain proper from my route into the unmapped lake. 

Closer view of Sulphur Mountain proper from my route into the unmapped lake.  In a few weeks I would go through the saddle above the snowpatch into some mapped but unnamed (at least on the maps) lakes. At the time this photo was taken, the patch of snow and a small pond nearby was the only water in the area. All of the streams in this headwater basin were dry. 

Looking north at the Spire Point, South Fork Cascade area from route into unnamed lake. 

Looking east at the unnamed lake. This lake was actually pretty deep and much more substantial than Lookout Lake and certainly Pilot Lake which I had gone to earlier in the year. Though it doesn't technically count for my project, I guess it makes up for some of the other mapped "lakes" that I have been to that weren't really there. The pile of boulders in the left foreground is either a moraine or deposited by a slide of some sort. The rocks are sitting at the bottom of an avalanche chute. 

Looking northeast at unnamed lake. 

Looking northwest at unnamed lake. 
Cascades frog to be sampled for chytrid fungus. One of the things I did this summer was sample a number of frogs for chytrid fungus as a volunteer for the U.S. Forest Service. Chytrid fungus has been implicated in amphibian declines in many parts of the world. We have it here but the extent is not known. These samples were taken in an effort to try to fill in some gaps in that information. The sampling involved swabbing the frog's abdomen with a Q-tip and then storing that Q-tip in a small vial of alcohol. The gloves are to prevent cross-contamination between frogs if the fungus was present. 

I also took photos to help aid in identification of the animals, i.e. so someone else could check and make sure my species identification was correct. I took 3 photos, one of the dorsal or back, one at a side view such as this one and one of the abdomen. These don't necessarily show every detail needed for identification but it should be good information to help verify I.D. This and the previous photo were actually taken at the ponds on Sulphur Creek which were in my previous post. 

Looking north at Spire Point, South Fork Cascade area on route out of unmapped lake. 

Rainbow trout from Sulphur Mountain Lake. I caught a limit's worth to pack out for Sacha and the kids. 

Lookout Lake. The is actually a pond here, not easily visible in this photo at center frame. The stream channels here were all watered from a spring with strong flow. 

Looking northwest at Downey Mountain with Sulphur Mountain Lake in the foreground from the end of the official Sulphur Mountain Trail. There are way trails beyond here all the way to Bath Lakes and beyond. 


Week of 8/18-21/15 Newhalem Fire:

Back to work on Tuesday the 18th. Pretty tired and stiff after hike. Working ten hour days at Ross Powerhouse outage tearing apart big generators for inspections and repairs. Lots of up and down stairs. Throat scratchy and head a little congested, hard to think straight because of cold. Hard to keep motivated to work. Very tired at end of day. Wednesday the 19th, went to work as usual. Still feeling effects of cold but seemed to be better. Just after lunch crew got word that small fire that had been burning at Newhalem had just blown up and was heading towards the Gorge and that they might be closing the road to travel. Crew pretty much dropped everything and got on boat out of there in about half an hour. Threw my pack in back of pickup and thought better of leaving it back there if we were headed towards area of hot, falling ash and cinders. Had Chad stop at a safe place and threw it in back seat of pickup. Had to wait for a bunch of vehicles to go by before we could get back in line. Safety guy stopped us on Diablo Dam and told us to be very careful. His windshield had been broken by a rock on his way through the Gorge. Wild picture going down Gorge. Smoke clouds created a kind of tunnel or gates where huge black clouds of smoke were on sides of canyon while you could still see clear sky through the middle of it. Lots of spot fires burning in ditches. We were going along at a pretty good clip and noticed that the fire had jumped the canyon and was under the power lines on the other side. About that time heard something hit side of pickup and looked back at road to see that it was literally raining hot rocks. In the shower of rocks, one a little smaller than a basketball flew across the road at about cab height between us and the vehicle ahead of us. Go! Go! Go! Flew through spot as fast as we could and were out of Gorge in about a minute. I have had a number of close calls in my life. I would rate that one at about a 2 on a scale of 5. In town nothing to do for a while but watch the fire burn up under the powerlines. Supervisors and operators wanted to kill power to high voltage lines to prevent arcing from lines to ground through smoke but someone in town directed the operators to keep generating until the fire was directly underneath the lines. The fire moved quickly under the lines and we saw several arcs occur which killed power to the lines. We later found out that a number of insulators were destroyed and would have to be replaced to make the lines functional again. No real direction. Milled around for several hours here and there. Located several people who we thought might still be on the other side of the Gorge or, Heaven forbid, trapped in it. Everyone accounted for. Almost quitting time for a regular day but seemed like so much going on able bodied help might be needed at any time so stuck around. Still no real direction. The two engines of the on site fire department were dashing all around town to try to keep ahead of threatening spot fires. Watched fire burn slowly down hill to edge of road. Seemed like something going on over at Gorge Powerhouse. Fire burning slowly down hill towards it and the greenhouse. Went over and discovered that they were trying to locate the plumber’s keys so they could turn on the irrigation system for Ladder Creek Gardens, right behind the powerhouse to try to wet everything down. Plumber wasn’t there that day. Found out that keys might be in desk in compound. No vehicle so mad dash, running back to compound. At compound gate ran into a couple guys headed over with hammer and chisel to get into irrigation control box. Told them about possible keys, hopped in back of truck, turned around and headed back into compound. Went through desk frantically three times, no keys. Grabbed set that vaguely fit description of the needed keys in the off chance that they might work. Back into pickup and over to Gorge Powerhouse. Keys didn’t work but Corey discovered another, unrelated key did work. Once inside the control box, couldn’t figure out how to set the electronics so the system would turn on. Corey discovered that we could bypass the electronics by turning on valve in pipe vault. Everyone dispersed to find vaults which were forest green for camouflage for garden aesthetics. Found several myself and turned on only to discover that water pressure was pretty low. Found one pipe with cap missing. This is why water pressure was low. Had no idea where replacement caps were but cut a plug from a broom handle and drove it into plastic pipe. Fixed leak and water pressure increased in nearby sprinkler heads. Found several other leaks and missing caps but didn’t know how close fire was at this point so abandoned project to check on fire progress. Most irrigation sprinklers were putting out at least some water so good enough for time being.  Next got involved in setting up sprinklers on top of powerhouse and getting them operating properly. The powerhouse is concrete and pretty fireproof but waterproof roofing was made of tar and fiberglass and the fear was that the tar could catch on fire. Made probably 4 or 5 trips to top of powerhouse and back over some steep stairs. During lulls in the activity, we watched sheets of flame ripping up the numerous ridges and gullies in the Gorge. Meanwhile crews had strung fire hoses up into gardens while we were trying to get the irrigation and the rooftop sprinklers going. Several wildland fire crews came and went, setting up hoses and pumps before getting redirected elsewhere. A couple of our non fire department guys had a hose on some flames not too far from the powerhouse and the fire engines were shooting water up the hill from big monitor nozzles. A burning tree not too far up the hill came down. A lot of the trees were growing on loose rock or were rotten so when their roots or trunks burned out, they came down. It looked like a bad spot to be in on that hill. The support for the guys on the hose kind of evaporated so they abandoned it and headed back down the hill. The crews behind the powerhouse were also working near the powerlines that fed the dam from the powerhouse. These lines were on creosoted double wooden poles and one of the double poles nearest the powerhouse looked like it was on fire. You could see an orange glow about chest high on it. Several of us were talking about the possibility of maybe getting over to the pole and putting it out. It was a quarter mile away or less. About that, time the pole gave out and snapped. We were standing right next to where the powerlines were anchored on the powerhouse and the roof shook and the lines themselves hummed like giant guitar strings. Everyone on the roof was screaming for the people on the ground to get out of the way and the people on the ground were scrambling. The powerlines were still incredibly tight and the snapped off pole dangled off them supported by the remaining pole. The stump of the broken pole burned bright orange from the creosote and the end in the air looked like a lit cigarette. Everyone backed away until they were safe from the lines and continued to do what they could do to keep the fire at bay. Kevin came up to the roof after a while. We got to talking about how if they could keep the water to them, we could still use hoses that had been strung up the hill and abandonded. I told him I would go with him. Nathan was on the fire engine and got some water pressure to us on the hoses. We sprayed down a line about 30 feet wide where the fire was approaching the powerhouse. I was standing just above the Ladder Creek Garden trail. It was the first hose work I had done since I was in the U.S. Navy. Nothing too dramatic. The fire didn’t appear to be in too much danger of crowning, just a slow, creeping ground fire. Even at that it was hard to put out. I kept spraying one spot of burning moss just at the limits of my nozzle and the fire would go out and smolder. After hitting that one spot continuously for several minutes, the smoke disappeared but the minute I took the water off, the smoke would reappear. I spent about ten minutes on that one spot before it finally went out for good. To make matters worse, we would sporadically lose water pressure and our nozzles would fall away to a trickle.  I found out later that Nathan was having a hard time keeping the water pressure up and steady. One time he blew a hose by overpressuring the lines in the attempt to keep the pressure up. The fire wasn’t moving very fast and we kept the flames beat back pretty well when we did have water so the loss of pressure was more of an inconvenience than a disaster, which it could have been if the fire was moving fast. We finally got pretty much everything we could reach and it was getting dark. In addition, there was a tree with a pretty bad lean tree that had been burned just above Kevin that he was worried about. A group of guys from the Sedro-Woolley Fire Department had just showed up and one of our guys was showing them around the hill. The guys up on the roof called that dinner was ready so we secured our hoses and went to get something to eat. Not exactly a heroic effort, but we did our part to keep the fire beaten back in that thirty feet of Ladder Creek Gardens at least. Dinner was from the cookhouse. When I went inside the powerhouse I got the word that I needed to call Sacha because she didn’t know where the hell I was or if I was okay. The only number I could remember was our home phone which I called after our little run through the Gorge. I left a message with Sacha’s mom who was watching the kids but evidently the message was a little confusing. The guys on the roof got hamburgers. I wanted a hamburger too but had to settle for a hot dog, fries and beans. After dinner, there wasn’t any particular direction. A lot of crews from fire departments in the nearby towns had showed up so it looked like everything had stabilized for the moment. It was after 9:00 p.m. so I decided that I might as well go home and said as much. I was headed out the door when I ran into Cody, our fire chief. He needed someone to get some fittings and rig up some hoses from a penstock header at the front of the powerhouse so we could get water out to defend the south side of the powerhouse. We had to go to the Fire Hall to get some hoses and fittings. I went with Corey to accomplish this task. I mentioned to him that I had been planning to go home and he just laughed. We got the hoses and fittings to make the rig-up work. The penstock header had a kind of odd-ball fitting to tap into and we made use of a kind of unconventional lashup of fittings but it worked. I was detailed to help a wildland fire crew get a portable water storage pond and pump set up to be supplied with water from the hose we had just run from the penstock. We got most everything moved over and they went off to get some more gear. I ended up waiting for half an hour or more. I was right at the end of the footbridge to Ladder Creek Gardens so I walked out on it to have a look. There are a lot of words that could be used to describe the scene, weird, eerie, creepy, cool, beautiful being some of the better ones I can think of. It was dark so you couldn’t see the ridgetops really. There were hundreds of spot fires glowing orange in the dark, towering above me for almost 180 degrees with large, active flames burning on my far right. The effect was kind of like looking out from the stage of an amphitheater at a galaxy of orange stars of hell-fire. Rocks and trees crashed down here and there in the dark and I could hear the rush of the river underneath-they had opened the spill gates at Gorge Dam before they had lost the dam feeder lines. Losing the feeder lines meant loss of the ability to open the gates remotely and no one was going up the Gorge that night. I can’t really describe my feelings. I was tired but certainly not numb. I wasn’t feeling too poetic, blown away by the awesome beauty and majesty of natural forces or anything like that. I guess a good way to sum up my thoughts was that I had better enjoy the show because we would be paying for it later, big time. I wasn’t particularly angry or sad, though I think some things with this fire could have been handled better but its easy to armchair quarterback in a situation like that. I was maybe feeling more like a fatalistic or matter-of-fact witness to history. There have been forest fires on this planet since there was organic matter to burn. In fact, there were forest fires when the planet’s forests were made up of giant horsetails and there were no trees as we know them. So the scene in front of me had been played out innumerable times over hundreds of millions of years. During a lull, I tried to get some photos but they didn’t turn out. It would have take a tripod, which I didn’t have, and probably a better camera than I had to get good photos that night. I wasn’t too disappointed because I wasn’t really in a picture taking mood and, even if I did have the equipment to take the pictures right, I really didn’t have the time it would have taken to do it right. I needed to be doing other things towards the effort to ensure our important infrastructure didn’t burn down. Someone had seen a nanny mountain goat and three kids a few days before in the Gorge. Unless they completely cleared out of the area, they were probably dead. Nothing could have outpaced the sheets of fire we saw running up the ridges and gullies in the Gorge. I felt a little sad about that, but again, similar stories have played out over the eons. The crows, ravens and turkey vultures were going to have a massive banquet. And all the various ground creatures that were now blackened, unrecognizable lumps were just the first casualties of this fire. All of the compromised trees and loose rock left by the fire made the Gorge, an already hazardous place, many times more dangerous, especially during bad weather. This situation wasn’t going away in a few years. It was going to last for decades probably. This was nothing new either. This whole area burned in the late 1920’s and my grandpa and his contemporaries who passed through this area in pursuit of various ways of making a living had to deal with it. And the crews who built the Skagit Project had to deal with it. The Gorge claimed more than a few lives in those days. Now, after this recent burn, there was a very good chance that more lives would be lost in the years to come. When you think about how long it would take for vegetation to grow back on the rocks and make things relatively stable again it would take decades. And over that length of time, it was almost inevitable that something bad would happen. Maybe it would be strangers, tourists on their way to see the sights. More likely it would be someone I knew, a coworker or friend who worked for one of the other agencies that were going to be driving through the Gorge on a regular basis and in all kinds of weather. The thought crossed my mind that I might be a future casualty of this fire but I would have to deal with that when the time came. In the meantime, it looked like things had settled down for this night and the odds were very good that I would make it home to see my family after this go-round. The wildland fire crew showed back up and thought that they could use another section of hose so I spent the next half hour or 45 minutes looking for more fittings to make that work. Ultimately I failed. In the midst of my search, they called me on the radio and told me everyone was meeting at the cookhouse for a debrief. I went back and told one of the guys on the wildland fire crew that I probably wouldn’t have that extra section of hose, at least that night. He thought they could still make it work so I headed for the cookhouse. It was about 11:00 p.m.  At the cookhouse they had apple pie and ice cream. I wasn’t really supposed to be eating that kind of stuff that late at night but at that point I didn’t really care. I had two helpings. We were told that arrangements had been made for us to stay in one of the bunkhouses for the night. The keys were in the door of any room that was available so all we had to do was pull the key and close the door. I walked over to Bunkhouse 70, found a room that looked like it was in a good location, pulled the key and closed the door. The day had been warm and there was no AC in the room so it was hot. I propped open the two windows to let in the night air, smoky but much cooler. I pulled off my work clothes and hung them over a chair and crashed. It was really warm so I slept on top of the blankets and sheets. I also didn’t want to make a mess of the bedding. I felt really greasy from working all day and a good part of the night and I hate going to bed like that without a shower but I figured it would be another hour to get that done after rounding stuff up, figuring out where the showers were and probably waiting for someone else to get done. So I took that hour to sleep. The next morning, Thursday, the 20th, things had quieted down a bit. The fire was laying down in the cooler morning temperatures and higher humidity and, though it was smoky, it wasn’t too bad. After breakfast and a morning briefing, Nathan and I headed back over to Gorge Powerhouse. We got another hose attached to the penstock header that I had been working on the night before and one of the other fire department crews had us set up a monitor nozzle to wet the woods down. We also went through the Ladder Creek Gardens irrigation system and plugged about four pipes that were leaking badly. This helped increase the pressure of the system a bit and the distance the irrigation nozzles sprayed but the system was designed to have all sections working at the same time so the pressure was still a bit disappointing. There were a number of other fire crews in the area so we headed back to the compound for new assignments. As I recall, the rest of the day was relatively uneventful for me. The fire was still threatening Gorge Powerhouse but the sprinkler system on the roof was operating well and there were several other crews assigned over there. I went home at the regular time and got to see the family. The next morning, Friday the 21st, I was in about a hour early. I ran into Chad and Jason who had been on call all night. They were on their way over to Gorge to check things out so I hopped in with them. Jason and I checked the irrigation system for Ladder Creek Gardens and everything seemed to be okay. We heard saws running up the hill a little ways from us. It sounded like they were falling some trees, which, in fact, they were, so we got out of there. We went up on the roof and everything there seemed to be in order. We noticed a smoke over by the greenhouse and I went over to investigate. There was a pitchy log or stump burning just above the greenhouse, I could smell the pitch burning. Sprinklers had been set up to wet the perimeter of the greenhouse but they was an area not too far from the smoke that was being covered. There was one more sprinkler available. It had originally had two sprinkler heads off of a run of PVC pipe but one of the heads had been broken off. This allowed most of the water to flow through the hole created by the broken pipe and dropped the water pressure to the point that the remaining sprinkler was ineffective. This sprinkler was still attached to a charged hose but had been valved  off and isolated. Goob, one of the guys on the logging crew who had been falling the trees that morning helped me drag this damaged sprinkler and hose over to the spot that wasn’t getting coverage. Then I whittled a plug from some small cedar poles used to prop up plants at the greenhouse. I drove the plug into the hole of the broken pipe and voila! Back in business with the remaining sprinkler. Wooden plugs, especially cedar are quit effective at stopping leaks. My dad taught me this and we had used it for years to plug holes in our cow watering tanks. When the wood swells from the water, it stops the leak completely, if you have done your plug right. This was pretty much the same method we used to stop the leaks in the Ladder Creek Gardens irrigation too. I found out later that there were specially designed caps for the irrigation on the plumber’s desk in the compound. We had another briefing that morning and things were in kind of a lull for a few hours. Then they wanted some volunteers to go up to Diablo and set some sprinklers up on the top of Diablo Powerhouse. Chad and I volunteered. The plan was to do a convoy behind one of the fire engines after the DOT had gone through and cleared the road. I had already eaten lunch so I went to the cookhouse and got a sack lunch with some extra stuff in case we got stuck on the other side of the Gorge. We got in line at the east end of Newhalem and waited. We were supposed to get rain that day (Friday) and a few desultory drops spattered across our windshield but that was it. There was a delay in getting started because a big burned log had fallen across the road and Gary, the guy from the DOT had to go back and get the big loader to move it out of the way. He wasn’t to fond of the idea of standing in an area of large falling objects to buck that log out of the way. I don’t blame him. The loader was a safer, quicker way to get the log moved. Finally we got started. I had my little cheap camera with me and was shooting pictures as we moved along. They weren’t the best. I was more concerned with looking out for stuff that might fall and hit us so I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to getting stuff framed properly for good photos. We got to Diablo okay and started getting ready to set up the sprinklers on top of the powerhouse. I had just thrown a line down from the top when Chad hollered at me to come down because we had to go to Ross Powerhouse. There was no generation at Ross so it was being powered by Diablo Powerhouse. It was determined that if they lost power to Ross, they would lose the sump pumps and the basement would flood throught the machines that we had torn apart. So we needed to go up and button up those machines at least enough to stop water from backing up through them. We only had a few hours to get this job done because they wanted us back down through the Gorge by 6:00 p.m. or so. A bunch of the electrical crew came with us to help. We got to Ross and set about buttoning things up. We had been working in the scroll cases and all of the tools and materials needed to be emptied out of them and they needed to be closed. We were cleaning out the scroll cases when we determined that some piping that had been removed would cause the basement to flood if the water backed up into the scroll cases. I had remembered Greg, one of the welders, mentioning this. Fortunately the new piping had been welded on and all we had to do was install a valve on one side of it to prevent the leak. The valves we installed were closed, making an effective blank flange and the valve on the other side of this piping was also closed. Brandt and I had a little trouble getting the one scroll case door bolted down but we figured it would be good enough to do the job. Glenn, the operator pumped down the sump and made some adjustments so that the eductor in it could probably keep up with the inflows. The eductor runs of penstock pressure so it doesn’t need electricity to work but it doesn’t have the capacity that the electric sump pumps do. We got back to Newhalem at about 6:00 p.m. and I found myself locked out of the Machine Shop because I didn’t have a security clearance to get in that late. Luckily, my supervisor Jeff was right there and let me in. I asked if there were any plans for the next day and he said no, treat it like a regular weekend and just come in on Monday and, if they needed me, they would call. I thought this was a little strange since we hadn’t gotten any rain that day and the forecast was for the weather to heat up again. The fire was still burning and threatening the town and some other structures and was liable to take off again with the warmer weather, especially if we got some wind. Usually in these types of situations, you want every able bodied person you can get on hand. I told Jeff that I had been scheduled to be off on Monday and that I was going out for three days, starting the next day (Saturday), so if it was determined that I was needed they had better call that night or very early on Saturday. He said okay so I left it at that and headed home. It felt kind of weird leaving, like I was abandoning my post. I was pretty sure that if I showed up the next couple of days that I would be put to work but I had other things to do as well. A lot of times in these situations, I think the people who are running the show get a little overwhelmed by the barrage of situations that present themselves and demand immediate attention so it is hard to put a lot of thought into the future and maybe it would be nice to have more people around if things start to get out of hand.

The fire on a flank of Ross Mountain on the morning of Tuesday the 18th. It had been only one small fire for several and then began spreading, I think the day before this photo was taken. It blew up the next day on the 19th. 

The hill above the Newhalem Compound Wednesday, the 19th, shortly after the fire's big run. 

Fire blowing up on east side of Gorge Canyon and burning under the 240 kilovolt transmission lines. There is also a smaller 7 kilovolt line here with wooden poles, several of which burned. 


This photo was taken shortly after the fire burned under the 240 kilovolt transmission lines and the lines arced to ground through the heavy smoke because someone in Seattle refused to let personnel on site kill power to the lines. 

Fire edge backing down hill above Newhalem Compound. The Newhalem/Diablo Volunteer Fire Department crew was racing around Newhalem at this time to places where the fire had edged down and threatened infrastructure. With the occasional help of bystanders, they were able to keep the fire at bay. No critical infrastructure was lost in the town of Newhalem. 

Burning back around the ridge above Newhalem. The fire jumped Gorge Canyon, burned north up the canyon past Newhalem and then back south around this ridge and eventually back past the town. As it burned back past the town, more efforts were needed to protect the town. I happened to have been gone on those days. 

Heading back down into the Gorge Canyon after our trip on Friday the 21st, to set up sprinklers at Diablo Powerhouse and then an emergency trip to Ross. 

Heading back down into the Gorge Canyon after our trip on Friday to set up sprinklers at Diablo Powerhouse and then an emergency trip to Ross. 

8/22-24/15 Unnamed Sulphur Mountain Lakes:

I was way behind in my schedule of high lakes that I wanted to hit this year. This weekend I decided to go into two unnamed lakes between and south of Sulphur Mountain Lake and Bath Lakes. These lakes were on the route into Bath Lakes and I thought the trip would also be a good way to scout a route into Bath Lakes. I had originally planned on trying to get into these lakes on the trip into Sulphur Mountain Lake the previous weekend but I didn’t have time, though I did scout part of the route into them. It was very smoky on the morning of Saturday the 22nd. I had waited until the kids were up so I could see them before I left. The morning was kind of gray and Sacha mentioned that she hadn’t thought it was supposed to be overcast that day. As I headed down the driveway I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the sun was a dull red ball from all of the smoke. It wasn’t overcast at all. It was just really smoky. Smoky and hazy all the way up trail. Cooler also which was nice though smoke rapidly got tiresome. Got to end of official trail in pretty good time, a little less than 3 hours. Could barely see quarter mile. Ate lunch and took nap to see if conditions would change and wind would pick up. No luck. Considered abandoning trip. Felt kind of uneasy. Sucking a lot of smoke into lungs and couldn’t see very far. Finally decided to keep going. Main push was fear of big fire above Suiattle River road then massive slides in rainy season. This would make these trips I was doing in the Sulphur Mountain area 4 to 6 day long trips instead of only 3 day long trips. Lots of demands on my time these days so thought I needed to get as much done in this area as possible. Got through gap I had scouted on previous weekend but then undershot and went up to saddle that doubled me back through same ridge. Smoke had lifted a bit when got to saddle and recognized spot on opposite ridge where trail ended and I had eaten lunch. Saw another saddle going in direction I wanted and checked it out. It was going in direction I wanted but was very steep. Decided to backtrack and descend to point where I could contour around until I could get to right saddle. Took about an hour to get to top of next saddle in ridge. This was proper one though very steep on the west side. Got down to lake at 5737 foot elevation without any major problems. Good camping spot about 30 feet above lake on west side but decided to camp in worse spot down by lake. No good camp spots down by lake but there were just about everywhere else I went on that trip. Looked like some interesting shots of Glacier Peak but too smoky. Could barely see Glacier Peak through smoke. That night I was very uneasy and kept waking up and, half awake, smelling smoke. Kept getting urgent feelings that fire was nearby and that I needed to get out of there before my rational mind, half awake, kicked in and told the panicking part of my mind to calm down. Slightly nauseous feeling the next morning. Next day air quality looked slightly better but still bad. Headed toward second lake at 5876 foot elevation to east. Got up on ridge and through saddle into this lake without any trouble. This was part of route into Bath Lakes. Plan was to go into this lake and then scout Bath Lakes route back to the west. Nice rainbow trout in lake. Didn’t see any amphibians. On way back out missed some photos of Glacier Peak that looked like they would be very nice except Glacier Park barely visible through smoke. Higher on ridge noticed fire two ridges away on Miner’s Ridge above Canyon Creek maybe a mile or so from Suiattle River Trail. Too far away from me to really worry about but at that point I was tired of it all and just wanted to get home. At that point, didn’t realistically have time to get out that day so it would have to wait. When I got back through saddle to lake where I was camped, forced myself to scout out the Bath Lakes route to the west. Found trail through choke point on ridge and overall, the route looked good. Discovered small pond at highest part of flats east of Lookout Lake. All of streams dry in flat so pond only water in area except small patch of snow on talus slope. Water looked kind of dark and skanky. Took shortcut to lake below through gully. Things were going well until suddenly it looked like I was approaching a big dropoff over some cliffs. Thought I might have to backtrack back up several hundred feet to get into another gully down. Fortunately I was able to get through and down to lake. Saw several fish surface in lake that afternoon. Looked like fish were pretty big. Only sign I saw of fish the whole time I was there. Unable to catch any. Next day (Monday) headed out retracing steps on way in. Winds had changed and got some good pics of Glacier Peak that day, both at sunrise and from route on way out. Trip out uneventful. Ran into some guys going into Bath Lakes and told them about fire on Miner’s Ridge. Drove to Forest Service Ranger Station before going home to report fire. Had heard what I assumed were spotter planes every morning so figure that they probably knew about it but wanted to make sure. They knew about it. Spent rest of afternoon with family and baked apple pie that Sacha had requested for her birthday that night. Developed tickle in throat and slight cough that afternoon. Wasn’t sure if it was cold returning or from sucking so much smoke into lungs or maybe both. Air quality still wasn’t great.

Sulphur Mountain proper from saddle into unnamed lake at 5737 foot elevation southeast of Lookout Lake. 

View south at Grassy Point and Glacier Peak from saddle into 5737 Lake. This was on Saturday the 22nd and Grassy Point is dimly visible and Glacier Peak all but invisible due to smoke. 
5737 Lake. 

Glacier Peak, morning of Sunday the 23rd from near the outlet of the 5737 Lake. 

Unnamed Lake at 5876 foot elevation on Sunday the 23rd. Glacier Peak is barely visible in the background due to heavy smoke. I also manipulated this photo a bit to make it possible to see Glacier Peak at all. 

5876 Lake. 

Rainbow trout from 5876 Lake. 

5876 Lake on route out, Glacier Peak barely visible in background. Again, this photo was manipulated so that Glacier Peak would be visible at all. I was sorely disappointed that the air wasn't clearer. I thought this particular setting/composition would have been really good with the lake in the foreground, a series of ridges and Glacier Peak looming in the background--if Glacier Peak had been more visible. 

Looking east up Canyon Creek/Miner's Ridge from route out of 5876 Lake.  Note the small fire burning on the side of Miner's Ridge to the left of center of the frame. I ran into a group of people going into Bath Lakes on my way out and warned them of this fire. They were planning on doing a loop from Bath Lakes around to Miner's Ridge. What I didn't know at that time was that there was another fire on the opposite side of Canyon Creek from the fire seen here. This other fire would have been much closer to the route that that party would have taken from Bath Lakes to Miner's Ridge but I wasn't aware of it until a few weeks later when I did a trip up to Miner's Ridge. I reported the fire seen here to the U.S. Forest Service upon my return but they were already aware of it.  

Dikes and sills. The white quartz veins in the rock are created when minerals, in this case silica, dissolved in superheated water gets injected into cracks and weak points in the base rock, in this case, granite or at least what passes for granite in these parts. As the water cools down, the dissolved mineral precipitate out forming these veins of foreign material in the base rock. If the vein is laid down in a horizontal orientation it is called a sill, if it is vertical, a dike. Of course the rock of the North Cascades has been folded and refolded so many times, it is often hard to tell in what orientation the vein was originally laid down. 


These dikes and sills are standing out in relief probably because they are a little more erosion resistant than the base rock. 


5737 Lake from alternate return route. 

5737 Lake. 

5737 Lake. 

Glacier Peak with Grassy Point in the foreground from near the outlet of the 5737 Lake on Monday morning, the day I headed out. The wind had picked up a bit overnight and the smoke began to clear out a bit. 

Same spot as previous photo, about half an hour later. 

Glacier Peak and Grassy Point on the route out of the 5737 Lake. 


Glacier Peak and Grassy Point from saddle into 5737 Lake on route out. 

Ridges on Upper Suiattle and beyond just out of view to the left of the photo above. 

Sulphur Mountain proper from saddle into 5737 Lake. 

Glacier Peak and Grassy Point from saddle into 5737 Lake. I was quite happy the smoke lifted a bit and actually added to the photographic composition. As noted above, this scene was all but invisible on the trip into the 5737 Lake. I took a number of photos from this spot, one of which is above. The clouds kept moving through, changing the composition. This was probably my favorite cloud alignment of the series but I thought all of them were good. 






Looking north into the Spire Point, South Fork Cascade area from route between 5737 Lake and Lookout Lake.  

Looking north into the Spire Point, South Fork Cascade area from route between 5737 Lake and Lookout Lake.

Looking north into the Spire Point, South Fork Cascade area from route between 5737 Lake and Lookout Lake.



 8/25-30/15 Newhalem Fire Cont. :

Went to work Tuesday the 25th. Clear air until almost into Newhalem. It turned out that the fire did take off again and burned west back around to the other side of town. They called people in on both Saturday and Sunday but, by the time that happened, I was long gone. Smoke hung thick in Newhalem all day. Could only see several hundred yards in it. Some kind of temperature inversion was happening. It was very cool and smoky until well into the afternoon. Did some work on some valves and tried to minimize exertion. Had a nagging frequent tickle in throat and cough. Started to worry a bit that I had overdone it and sucked in too much smoke over the weekend. Either that or the slight cold was coming back, maybe brought on by weekend activities. Spent most of day concentrating on taking shallow breaths through nose. Smoke and temperature inversion all week until Friday at Newhalem. Fortunately, my cough went away after first day. Rained Friday which cleared the air a little bit but not completely. Heavy rain Saturday the 29th. Took day off and went Down Below to get haircut and new Chucks and take kids to Children’s Museum.  Heavy winds west of Lyman. Lots of limbs and debris flying out of cottonwoods near Hansen Creek just east of Sedro-Woolley. Lights out at barber shop but he trimmed my hair anyway. Good thing, it was really starting to bother me. Finished other errands and went to Children’s Museum. Luckily got back home through wind and debris okay. Couldn’t get gas until Concrete because power out in Lyman and Birdsview. Sunday the 30th, scouted Milk Creek Trail. Bridge gone but heard reports that log had been located for crossing Suiattle. Found log that would work but didn’t look like many people had been using it. Maybe another log somewhere else. Had planned to maybe do some trips up Lime Ridge via Milk Creek later in coming weeks, weather permitting. At Suiattle trailhead, discovered trails off Little Wenatchee River that I had planned on using for other trips were closed due to fire. Air much cleaner at Newhalem on Monday the 31st. 

Morning at Seattle City Light compound. I don't remember exactly what day this was but every day the whole week was pretty much like this. There was a temperature inversion so, even though it was very smoky which one would normally associate with warmth, it was actually quite cold. Because the air was so still it didn't circulate either. One of my jobs during this week was to monitor various buildings with a gas detector to check for carbon monoxide. The buildings with less traffic in and out seemed to have the most buildup of carbon monoxide but I never saw levels that were life threatening. As bad as this is I think people in Beijing and other cities in China and other parts of the world experience worse air quality than this. 

Another view of the compound. 

Ash from the fire on the trunk of my car. 

Coming in to work one morning. 

The compound a little later in the week. There was a little more air circulation this day and the smoke was lighter but it was still onerous. 
The Marblemount Community Hall as an Incident Command Center. A wildland fire team (Great Basin Team 4) came in to help manage the fire because local resources were stretched so thin. They used the Community Hall as an incident command post and stayed for about a month. The rent for the Community Hall was probably one of the largest in its history and much of it will go to some badly needed repairs. What this photo doesn't show is that earlier this summer, the hall was within several hundred dollars of being insolvent. We were fortunate that we had a good salmon barbeque at the start of the month and were okay financially, just barely, for another year. But it very well could have happened that this resource would have been defunct and no longer usable by the time it was needed by the fire management team. Of course I'm sure in this case, some sort of building or facility would have been identified and utilized as an ICS. However, what the greater community would use as a resource similar to the Community Hall if it was defunct, I don't know. The Community Hall seems to be perpetually under appreciated both by the community and our elected representatives who I would think would be interested in ensuring that some kind of infrastructure exists to help serve the needs of already under served eastern Skagit County. As it is, the hall is kept going by a small group of volunteers who have, over the years, made many personal sacrifices to ensure the hall keeps operating and is available to serve the local community. 

The burn across the Gorge from Tunnel 1 and Brown's Creek. I took this much later in the year, in November. This photo illustrates one of the themes I have tried to emphasize during the course of this blog, that large scale disturbance in the Pacific Northwest and the North Cascades is a common thing. The large trees with the blocky foliage sticking out above the rest of the forests are old-growth and survivors of a fire that occurred here in the late 1920's or early 1930's. I have heard that that fire was the result of someone letting a brush pile fire get away. Such may be the case, but this area would have burned as the result of a natural, non-human caused event at some point as it did this year and will again, probably many times in the years to come. It looks like there may have been several different fires in this entire area at that time, judging by the look of the forests and historical photographs of the area. As is obvious in this photo, some of the old-growth survived this fire and some did not, nothing is forever and sometimes it is just the luck of the draw whether you make it or not. 

Wider view of area in photo above. I was interested to see how patchy this fire was. I am definitely not an expert on wildland fires but I have a hunch this burn (and the earlier burn in the 1920's/1930's) is so patchy because the ground is so rocky and broken up. The small bluffs and ridges probably funnel fire and wind in certain areas while shielding others. I have noticed in other areas, like Cow Heaven where fires have burned most of the trees in a forest uniformly that survivors tend to be in areas around cliffs and bluffs, not always necessarily growing on the rock in apparent sweet spots where the rocks direct wind and fire away. 

Postscript: As I write this in December 2015 we have already had one slide that blocked the Gorge above Newhalem in the area of the fire. It was the result of heavy rains. So far we haven't experienced any more but I think future slides, many related to the fire are inevitable. The big, dramatic happenings of the fire are now over and seems like some folks think we are done with it but I think because of it we will be dealing with more frequent land and snow slide issues for years to come not to mention debris that, while not on the scale of a large slide, is plenty big enough to crush you and ruin your day if you happen to be in the way when it comes down. On a lighter note, we have been seeing goats above Newhalem again. 

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